{"id":596388,"date":"2026-09-10T20:02:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T20:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596388\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T20:02:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T20:02:16","slug":"the-kiwi-nurse-who-landed-in-nyc-a-day-before-9-11-and-how-it-changed-her-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596388\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kiwi nurse who landed in NYC a day before 9\/11 \u2013 and how it changed her forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2001, New Zealand nurse Frances Hughes arrived in New York to take up the prestigious Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy. The next morning at 8:46am, a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre. Today, on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the now Dr Frances Hughes recalls that day to Julie Hill. <\/p>\n

I was really excited about moving to New York. I thought, like most Kiwis do, you\u2019re going to learn a great deal. I was in my mid-30s and doing my doctorate, and so many of the prominent people in public policy were from there. It was an amazing opportunity. <\/p>\n

\"Excited<\/p>\n

Excited to be in NYC, Frances (front, second from left) with the other Harkness Fellows in Health Care Policy. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

I went on my own \u2013 my husband and kids [then 11 and 13] were meant to meet me there. I arrived in New Jersey and stayed with a professor I knew then she drove me into New York. She said, which I\u2019ll never forget, you\u2019ve got to go up to the World Trade Centre but don\u2019t go until after 9am because all the workers will be going in. <\/p>\n

In the morning we walked up to Harkness House near Central Park. We were in a conference room when all of a sudden people started rushing around saying a plane had hit one of the towers. <\/p>\n

\"Shocked<\/p>\n

Shocked New Yorkers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on the morning of 9\/11. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

We went outside and saw one of the towers falling. After a few minutes the other tower fell as well. <\/p>\n

It came through that it was an attack. I rang my husband and said, “There\u2019s going to be stuff you hear but I\u2019m OK,” and then I got cut off. <\/p>\n

For her family back in NZ, it was a relief to see her alive.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

So then I did what I know best, which is help people, talk to people, direct them to the Red Cross. By that stage, there was starting to be this eerie quietness. I felt like I was in a volcanic eruption. There was thick grey matter in the air that was coming off the towers and all sorts of things that you don\u2019t even want to think about were in that air. <\/p>\n

\"Frances<\/p>\n

Frances remembers the “thick grey matter” that filled the air. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

There were big yellow dump trucks, truck after truck after truck coming in because they\u2019d shut the tunnels [the underground network that services New York\u2019s islands]. They had boats going around the Hudson River with machine guns on them. All the rental cars were taken out of New York and everything just shut. <\/p>\n

‘I don’t want to come, Mum’<\/p>\n

I was asked to go into the Reuters studio and do an interview for the Paul Holmes show. The best thing about that was that my family saw I was alive. Because cellphone coverage was down and everybody was wanting to know, are you OK? <\/p>\n

In Times Square there was no traffic, just people standing silently with candles and lights. There were foreign tourists taking photos and people got really angry at them. That was the first time I saw some anger. Afterwards I witnessed a lot of verbal aggression, people getting assaulted who looked like they came from a Muslim or an Arab country. <\/p>\n

\"Candlelight<\/p>\n

Candlelight vigil for the victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack at Union Square in New York City. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

People had American flags on their handbags, American badges. Someone gave me a brooch but I wasn\u2019t comfortable wearing it. I went to church and they sang God bless America and the Star-Spangled Banner.<\/p>\n

All J1 visa holders were suspended so I was caught up in that. I couldn\u2019t open a bank account, I didn\u2019t have any access to money. My husband had to send me some cash. I stayed with friends because I couldn\u2019t get a rental property for six or seven weeks. <\/p>\n

Everything after that was affected: where you travelled, how you travelled, how you were treated, especially if you weren\u2019t from the US. My family didn\u2019t move over for a couple of months. My son said, ‘I don\u2019t want to come, Mum’. <\/p>\n

A career honed by tragedy<\/p>\n

Afterwards, I had trouble sleeping and I ended up with panic attacks. I\u2019d been so busy trying to help everybody that I hadn\u2019t really processed it. <\/p>\n

\"Dr<\/p>\n

Dr Frances Hughes has since focused her career on disaster preparedness, psychosocial recovery and the mental health of communities and healthcare workers. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

I became really interested in psychosocial emergency response. I got involved with the Ministry of Health doing guidelines then went back to the US as a Fulbright scholar, looking at how to maintain resilience in hospitals prone to natural disasters. <\/p>\n

I became very astute around travelling. I always have an exit plan. And I\u2019m really appreciative of security at airports. People get frustrated with it but I find the vigilance really important. <\/p>\n

I say to my kids, what would we do? Where would we go? When you\u2019ve been through a situation like this, an emergency, you\u2019ve got to always go back and say, I did it last time, I can do it again.<\/p>\n

Retired battalion chiefs David Morkal and Patrick Gleeson spoke to Breakfast about the tragedy that claimed the lives of nearly 3000 people, including 343 firefighters. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2001, New Zealand nurse Frances Hughes arrived in New York to take up the prestigious Harkness Fellowship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,5944,111,139,64,69,384],"class_list":["post-596388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-life-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-north-america","tag-nz","tag-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}